


Foreword: for Want of a Vader

by Jaina_Pridemoore



Series: Sith!Leia [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Light spoilers?, Meta, the empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26014666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaina_Pridemoore/pseuds/Jaina_Pridemoore
Summary: This is mostly just a way of organizing some of my thoughts on this AU, and putting them out there for feedback.If you want to read the story without any spoilers or foreknowledge whatsoever, you should probably skip this.May edit as time goes on.
Series: Sith!Leia [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651534
Kudos: 11





	Foreword: for Want of a Vader

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly just a way of organizing some of my thoughts on this AU, and putting them out there for feedback.  
> If you want to read the story without any spoilers or foreknowledge whatsoever, you should probably skip this.  
> May edit as time goes on.

I think that in canon, Vader probably killed Barriss off-screen. 

Not directly, though.

Think about it-- she was locked up, mentally/emotionally vulnerable, had demonstrated a knack for subterfuge and deception as well as a willingness to mass-murder, and was, to Vader, A) a painful reminder of how the Jedi and Republic betrayed 'Skywalker's Apprentice' and B) someone who caught on to the decline of the Jedi Order and had the guts to act on it _before he did._

There is _**no way** _Palpatine didn't make Vader train her. 

And, because she was the perfect candidate for a prototype Inquisitor, Vader was probably forbidden from actually killing her, even while he had free reign with 'training' methods. 

That said, while Vader may have gotten some kind of hollow satisfaction from torturing her, she was and always would be a reminder of Anakin Skywalker. I don't imagine she lived very long after the first batch of Inquisitors were ready. Maybe one of those others killed her in whatever passed for a training exercise among them, maybe Vader sent her off on a suicide mission, idk. It's not a story I'm especially motivated to explore. I'll stick to my slightly-less-depressing AU, tyvm. 

But _without_ Vader in the picture, she wouldn't be quite so disposable, would she? 

So: while Vader's death is _the_ point of divergence, it _manifests_ via other characters, clearing the stage for them. 

Here's where the divergence really splits into branches. 

Branch one: the effects of Vader's absence on the Empire's consolidation and expansion. Enemy lines he could've practically strolled through either remain intact or require a greater resource commitment to break. Space battles he could have ended with some ace piloting drag on for longer. Prisoners whose minds he could've cracked open don't spill their secrets. The rate of conquest is slower, which in turns gives rebels further from the Core more time to dig in and prepare for active resistance, etc. Someone with enough time on their hands could probably write a series of essays on this. That person is not me. (Probably. Hopefully. Please god don't let this be my next hyperfixation I have other fics to finish) 

Branch two: the effects of Vader's absence on the population of surviving Jedi. Most of the Order is already dead, but without Vader on the hunt, a number of Jedi who escaped the initial purges have time to go to ground. Jedi such as Koffi Arana & co, who decided to make a stand against this new Sith Lord, lack such a target and instead either disappear or join up with fledgeling rebel cells. With things like Jedi Shadows taken into account, it's not inconceivable that some of these survivors might have linked up at some point. It's not inconceivable that some of them might know of various places with enough of a Force-presence to hide them. You see where I'm going with this.

Branch three: The Inquisitor Formerly Known as Barriss Offee. 

Palpatine suddenly lacks a taskmaster for the Inquisitor program, and is too busy to handle it personally-- so he re-captures and effectively enslaves Maul. This has some Not Great effects on Maul's mental state. While he's very effective at teaching the fledgeling Inquisitors how to murder and survive, he can't necessarily be trusted on field missions, so Palpatine decides to keep him on Nur/Mustafar/Coruscant... and alters his planned approach to the 'recruitment' of Barriss Offee. 

The freshly-minted First Sister is more subtle, calculating, and stealthy than Vader could ever be, but she lacks the raw power to just steamroll through groups of Jedi-- so she's assigned to tasks that _require_ more subtlety and calculation than raw power. 

Which is how she ends up reading some dossiers on the leadership of Alderaan and decides to take a closer look. 

I don't know exactly how that investigation plays out, but it ends with violence, an imperial occupation of Alderaan, and an impressionable young replacement Apprentice for Palpatine. 

While he's molding Leia in his image, a mentally-unstable Maul is coming to rely, intentionally or not, on his younger, subtler 'student'. To the worn-out, vulnerable young Jedi they capture she's the slightly-less-bad-cop, the healing hand after torture sessions, the one who reasons with them instead of hurting them... you can see where I'm going with this. Even if someone knows they're being manipulated, the instinctive need for comfort and affection isn't so easily ignored. TBH I haven't fully plotted out what happens with/to the Inquisition in this AU, but I've got some promising ideas. 

That's all for now. I don't want to get too spoilery, here-- but please, comment with your feedback/ideas/critiques; Star Wars canon is expansive, and I'm sure there's a ton of things I'm overlooking. 


End file.
